Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk Would Kim Jong-Un mind giving Moon Jae-In a break? More than any other South Korean leader in years, Moon would like nothing better than to be the one to bring about North-South reconciliation. Wouldn’t it be great, Moon’s newly appointed former activists must be saying, if Kim Jong-Un invited […]
by WorldTribune Staff, May 11, 2017 Suh Hoon, named as South Korean President-elect Moon Jae-In’s intelligence chief, played a key role in arranging summit talks with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il in 2000 and 2007. Suh “is widely seen as aimed at backing up the new leader’s bid to improve long-strained inter-Korean ties,” Yonhap news […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk The drama of South Korean history opens a tumultuous new act with the election of a liberal labor lawyer who has promised both to bring about detente with North Korea and satisfy the demands of restive masses fed up with alleged rightist abuses. Whether Moon Jae-In will be able […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk TOKYO ― The shadows of war lengthen over Japanese society in thrall to Article 9 of a “peace constitution” foisted under the “occupation” led by the victorious World War II Pacific commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Much as the “rightist” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe might want to do away with […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk An interviewer for a radio station in Boston, winding up one of those Q&A’s to which journalists are subjected, asked, What would you do to resolve the North Korean “problem?” I answered, “I have no solution, no idea, no clue.” While that response might seem like an abject display […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk All the talk over what to do with North Korea overlooks one problem to which people are not paying that much attention. That’s the yawning gap in trade between the U.S. and all its leading trade partners. It’s a lot easier to grasp the significance of a North Korean […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk POHANG – An array of heavy-duty, sophisticated gear spread over the beaches here shows the incredible military might of the U.S. and South Korea. Far offshore, way beyond the horizon, the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson leads a “strike force” of warships. Watching the display of U.S. strength on the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk From the outset, the idea of implanting a Star Wars weapon capable of zapping an enemy missile 150 kilometers above the earth’s surface had to be controversial. The real problem from the South Korean viewpoint initially was, what for ― what we really need are short and mid-range missiles […]
by WorldTribune Staff, April 5, 2017 America is facing a breakdown in the free press which endangers the nation, say a group of news professionals who are taking action in response. The crisis came glaringly to the forefront during the 2016 presidential election and coverage of the ensuing Trump administration, according to the Internet site […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk The prospect of Park Geun-Hye going to jail in the most sweeping political scandal in modern Korean history inspires invidious comparisons. Who, actually, was the most corrupt president since promulgation of the “democracy constitution” in 1987 at the height of demonstrations as massive as those we have witnessed in […]
